Story by Abigirl Tembo, Health Editor
THE Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) have signed a landmark partnership aimed at advancing gender equality, youth empowerment, and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) through football.
The agreement was formalised in Harare this Friday, signalling a new era of community outreach using football as a vehicle for social change.
The partnership seeks to harness the popularity and accessibility of football to raise awareness and advocate on critical societal issues, particularly in grassroots communities.
ZIFA President Nqobile Magwizi expressed his enthusiasm for the initiative, noting football’s unique ability to transcend social barriers.
“Our manifesto was that football is more than a game. It speaks to the core of society, it is a language that can be spoken right across all of community, globally. Now, the relationship with UNFPA will allow us, and will give us the wheels to reach out to the various communities that we work with as a football association.
“As you know, we have our regions, we have our provinces, and we have our area zones. To the village level, those are all communities that need someone’s giving direction. So football is that platform that we are now leveraging on to ensure that we are building a more sustainable society, a society that is development orientated, and one of the biggest fights we have, maybe in Africa, also is about the challenge of poverty.
“When society or communities address problems, which the UNFPA is addressing, it is a process that gets us out of the issue of poverty. When society can understand that there is a lot more to life and we deal with these challenges, it helps us. So football becomes a platform through which that communication can happen, to build better and stronger communities, and to change lives in those communities,” he said.
UNFPA Country Representative, Ms Miranda Tabifor, echoed Mr Magwizi’s sentiments, highlighted the importance of using football as a platform to raise awareness on SRHR issues, particularly in communities where the game is widely popular.
“What we have signed is a comprehensive cooperative agreement, a partnership agreement. We cannot address these issues without partnership. And we have seen that ZIFA, is one of these critical partners that we have given the critical mass the fact that they have structures at the grassroots level.
“We say football as a game, it is not just a game. It addresses so many community issues, so many social norms issues. In my remarks, I did mention the issues that we face in the country, the gender-based violence status and the status in the country, which is not good. The benchmarks and the indicators that we have in terms of maternal mortality are not good. What we have in terms of HIV infections is not good and we believe that through sports and the partnership with ZIFA, we are going to raise awareness in the communities right as a structure that we have mentioned. Village level, parish level, village level, district level. So, that is how we see it.
“So raising awareness on these issues and using this platform is actually a win-win kind of partnership that we are engaged to. And changing the social norms is very important. Mr President talked about gender equality. For us to achieve gender equality, it is not one person’s business, it is everyone’s business, and what is gender equality? We have agreed that both are going to have the rollout of the programme, and we are going to unpack the respective interventions we are going to have across the board. So that is how we see the partnership. It’s a win-win partnership and it is really a landmark partnership. We believe that it is going to have an impact in the society at all levels,” she said.
With this partnership, ZIFA and UNFPA are poised to make a significant impact on Zimbabwean society by rolling out programmes that promote gender equality, youth empowerment, and SRHR awareness nationwide, harnessing the power of football to drive positive change and development across all levels of society.
